Underthis general heading we intend to publish from time to time, as the
material accumulates, articles and commentaries in which all aspects of
Russia’s economic life and economic development will be described from the
Marxist point of view. Now that
Iskra[1]
has begun to appear fort-nightly, the absence of such a section is most
keenly felt. However, we must call the most earnest attention of all
comrades and sympathisers of our publications to the fact that to conduct
this section (at all properly) we need an abundance of material and in
this respect our editors find themselves in an exceptionally unfavourable
position. The contributor to the legal press cannot even imagine the most
elementary obstacles that sometimes frustrate the intentions and
endeavours of the “underground” writer. Do not forget,
gentlemen, that we cannot use the Imperial National Library, where tens
and hundreds of special publications and local newspapers are at the
service of the journalist. Material for an economics section at all
befitting a “news paper,” i.e., material that is at all brisk,
topical, and interesting to both reader and writer, is scattered in small
local newspapers and in special publications which are mostly either too
expensive or are not at all on sale (government,
Zemstvo,[2]
medical publications, etc.). That is why it will be possible to run an
economics section tolerably well only if all readers of
the illegal newspaper act in accordance with the proverb: “Many a
little makes a mickle.” Putting aside all false modesty, the Editorial
Board of Iskra must admit that in this respect they are very
poorly supplied. We are sure that most of our readers are able to read the
most various special and local publications, and actually do
read them “for themselves.” Only when every such reader
asks himself each lime he comes across some interesting item:
“Is this material available to the editors of our paper? What have I
done to acquaint them with this material?”— only then shall we
succeed in having all the outstanding developments in Russia’s economic
life appraised, not only from the standpoint of the official, Novoye
Vremya,[3]
Witte panegyrics, not only for the sake of the traditional
liberal-Narodnik plaints, but also from the standpoint of revolutionary
Social-Democracy.

Andnow, after this non-liberal plaint, let us get down to the subject.

1. The Savings-Banks

Oflate the savings-banks have become one of the most favoured subjects of
panegyrics, not only from Witte, but from the “critics” as
well. The Davids and Hertzes, the Chernovs and Bulgakovs, the
Prokopoviches and Totomiantses, in a word, all adherents of the
fashionable “criticism of Marxism” (to say nothing of
respectable professors, like the Kablukovs and Karyshevs) chant in various
tones and voices: “These orthodox devotees talk about the
concentration of capital!—Why, the savings-banks alone show us the
decentralisation of capital. They talk of mounting poverty! In actual
fact, we see an increase in small savings among the people.”

Letus take the official statistics on the Russian savings-banks for
1899,[4]
which someone was kind enough to send us, and examine them more
closely. In 1899 there was a total of 4,781 state savings-banks in Russia,
of which 3,718 were located at post- and telegraph-offices and 84 at
factories. In five years (from 1895 to 1899) the number of savings-banks
increased by 1,189, i.e., by one-third. During the same period the number
of depositors increased from 1,664,000 to 3,145,000, i.e., by almost one
and a half million (by 89 per cent), and the total deposits increased from
330,000,000 rubles to 608,000,000 rubles, i.e., by 278,000,000 rubles, or
by 84 per cent. And so there has apparently been an enormous increase in
“the people’s savings”?

Butwhat strikes the eye in this connection is the following
circumstance. From literature about the savings banks it is known that in
the eighties and early nineties the total deposits increased most
rapidly in the famine years, 1891 and 1892. That is on the one
hand. On the other, we know that during this period in general, during the
eighties and nineties taken together, the increase in “the people’s
savings” was accompanied by an astonishingly rapid and drastic
process of impoverishment, ruin, and starvation among the peasantry. To
understand how these conflicting phenomena could go together one need only
recall that the growth of money economy was the principal feature
in Russia’s economic life during the period mentioned. The increase in
savings-bank deposits is by itself not at all indicative of a growth in
“the people’s” savings in general, but only of a growth in
monetary “savings” (and sometimes even only of their
concentration in central institutions). Among the peasantry, for example,
it is quite possible that, with the transition from natural economy to
money economy, there should be an increase in monetary savings
with a decrease in the sum-total of “the people’s”
savings. The peasant of the old type kept his savings in a stocking when
these savings were in cash, but most often these savings were made up of
grain, fodder, coarse linen, firewood, and like articles “in kind.”
The peasant who has been or is being ruined now has savings neither in
kind nor in cash, while a negligible minority of peasants who are growing
rich are accumulating monetary savings which are beginning to find their
way into state savings-banks. Hence, the in crease in deposits parallel
with the spread of famine is quite understandable; what it denotes is not
an advancement in the people’s welfare, but the elimination of the
old-type, independent, peasant by the new rural bourgeoisie, i.e., the
wealthy peasants, who are unable to run their farms without permanent farm
labourers and day labourers.

Thestatistics classifying depositors according to occupation provide
interesting oblique confirmation of what has been said above. These data
cover nearly three million (2,942,000) accounts, with deposits totalling
545,000,000 rubles. The average deposit is shown to be 185 rubles—a
sum, as you see, that clearly points to the predominance, among
depositors, of “fortunates” who constitute a negligible
minority of the Russian people and who have inherited or acquired
property. The biggest depositors are the clergy: 46,000,000
rubles spread over 137,000 accounts, i.e., an average of 333 rubles per
account. It seems that being responsible for saving the souls of their
flock is not an unprofitable business.... Next in line are the
landowners:
9,000,000 rubles on 36,000 accounts, i.e., average of 268 rubles;
further—merchants: 59,000,000 rubles on 268,000 accounts,
i.e., an average of 222 rubles; then come officers—with an average
of 219 rubles per account, civil servants—averaging 202
rubles. “Agricultural and other rural occupations” hold only
sixth place: 640,000 accounts totalling 126,000,000 rubles, i.e., the
average account is 197 rubles; then come “employees in private
businesses”—with an average of 196 rubles; “miscellaneous
occupations — 186 rubles; urban trades—159 rubles;
“domestic servants”— 143 rubles; factory
workers—136 rubles, and last come “private
soldiers”—86 rubles.

Thus,factory workers practically come last among depositors
(exclusive of private soldiers, who are maintained by the state)! Even
domestic servants have higher average savings (143 rubles per account, as
against 136 rubles) and possess a much larger number of accounts. To be
precise: domestic servants have 333,000 accounts with deposits totalling
48,000,000 rubles, while factory workers have 157,000 accounts with
deposits totalling 21,000,000 rubles. The proletariat, which creates all
the wealth of our aristocracy and our magnates, is in a worse condition
than servants of the latter! Of the total number of Russian factory
workers (not less than two million people) only approximately
one-sixth are able to make even the most modest deposits in the
savings-banks[5]—and
this despite the fact that workers’ entire income comes exclusively in
money, and they often have to support families living in the villages, so
that for the most part their deposits are not “savings” at all
in the real sense of the word, but simply sums put aside for the
next remittance to their families, etc. Moreover, we say nothing of the
fact that the group listed under the heading “factory workers”
probably
includes office clerks, foremen, superintendents, in a word, persons who
are not actually factory workers.

Asto the peasants—if one considers that they are mostly entered
under the heading of “agricultural and other rural
occupations,"—well, their average savings account is, as we
have seen, higher than even that of employees in private businesses, and
considerably exceeds the average savings of those coming under the heading
of “urban trades” (i.e., presumably, shopkeepers, artisans,
janitors, etc.). Obviously, these 640,000 peasants (out of approximately
10,000,000 households, or families) with 126,000,000 rubles in
savings-banks belong exclusively to the peasant bourgeoisie. It
is only to these peasants, and perhaps to those most closely associated
with them, that the data on progress in agriculture, the spread of
machinery, improvements in land cultivation, and higher living standards,
etc., apply— data brought forward against the socialists by
Messrs. the Wittes so as to show an “advancement in the people’s
welfare,” and by Messrs. the Liberals (and the “Critics”) so as to
refute the “Marxist dogma” about the decline and ruin of
small-scale farming. These gentlemen do not notice (or pretend not to
notice) that the decline of small-scale production is expressed precisely
in the fact that a negligible number of people who grow rich through the
ruin of the masses come from the ranks of the small producers.

Ofstill greater interest are data classifying the total number of
depositors according to the size of their deposits. In round figures, this
classification is as follows: of three million depositors, one million
possess accounts not exceeding 25 rubles. Their deposits
total 7,000,000 rubles (out of 545,000,000 rubles, i.e., only 12 kopeks of
every 10 rubles of the aggregate deposits!). The average account is 7
rubles. That is to say, the really small depositors, who
constitute one-third of the total number, possess only 1/(?), of
the aggregate sum. Further, depositors with accounts of between 25 and 100
rubles constitute one-fifth of the total number (600,000) and own a total
of 36,000,000 rubles, the average account being 55 rubles. If we
combine these two groups, we see that over 50 per cent
of all depositors (1,600,000 out of 3,000,000) own only 42,000,000 rubles,
or 1/12, of the grand total of 545,000,000 rubles. Of the remaining
well-to-do depositors one million have accounts ranging from 100 to 500
rubles, with deposits totalling 209,000,000 rubles, the average account
being 223 rubles. Four hundred thousand depositors have accounts exceeding
500 rubles each, with deposits totalling 293,000,000 rubles, an average of
762 rubles. Consequently, these evidently well-to-do people, who form
less than 1/7 of the total number of depositors, possess more
than half (54 per cent) of the total capital.

Hence,the concentration of capital in present-day society, the
dispossession of the masses, makes itself felt with great force even in an
institution especially intended for the “younger brother,” the
poorer section of the population, since deposits are limited by law to
1,000 rubles. And let us note that this concentration of property, which
is typical of any capitalist society, is still higher in the advanced
countries, despite the greater “democratisation” of their
savings-banks. In France, for instance, as of December 31, 1899, there
were 10,500,000 savings-bank accounts with deposits totalling
4,337,000,000 francs (a franc is slightly less than 40 kopeks). That makes
an average of 412 francs per account, or about 160 rubles, i.e.,
less than the average deposit in Russian savings-banks. The
number of small depositors in France is also comparatively larger than in
Russia: approximately one-third of depositors (3 1/3 million) have
accounts ranging up to 20 francs (8 rubles), the average deposit being 13
francs (5 rubles). Altogether these depositors possess only 35,000,000
francs out of a total of 4,337,000,000, i.e., 1/125 Depositors with
accounts of up to 100 francs constitute a little over 50 per cent of the
total number (5,300,000), but possess a total of only 143,000,000 francs,
i.e., 1/33 of the aggregate deposits. On the other hand, depositors with
accounts of 1,000 francs and over (400 rubles and over), while
constituting less than one-fifth (18.5 per cent) of the total
number of depositors, have concentrated in their hands over
two-thirds (68.7 per cent) of all deposits, viz., 2,979,000,000
francs out of a total of 4,337,000,000 francs.

Thus,the reader now has before him a certain amount of information for an
appraisal of our
“critics"’
arguments. One and the same fact—the enormous increase
in savings-bank deposits, and in particular the increase in the number of
small depositors—is interpreted in different ways. The
“critics of Marxism” say: the people’s welfare is growing and
decentralisation of capital is increasing. The socialists say: what is
taking place is the conversion of savings “in kind” into
monetary savings, and the number of well-to-do peasants, who are turning
bourgeois and converting their savings into capital, is increasing. An
incomparably more rapid growth is to be seen in the number of peasants
being driven into the ranks of the proletariat, which lives by the sale of
its labour-power and puts (at least temporarily) part of its meagre income
into the savings-banks. The large number of small depositors merely goes
to show how numerous are the poor in capitalist society, since the share
of these small depositors in the aggregate deposits is negligible.

Thequestion arises: in what way do the “critics” differ from
the most ordinary bourgeois?

Letus go further, and see how the capital of the savings-banks is used
and for what purposes. In Russia this capital serves primarily to
strengthen the might of the militarist and bourgeois-police state. The
tsarist government (as we have already pointed out in a leading article in
No. 15 of
Iskra[See present edition, Vol. 5,
“The Budget”.—Ed.])
disposes of this capital just as arbitrarily as
it does of all other public property it lays hands on. It quite calmly
“borrows” hundreds of millions of this capital for financing
its Chinese expeditions, for hand-outs to capitalists and landowners, for
re-equipping the army, enlarging the navy, etc. Thus, in 1899, for
example, 613,000,000 rubles out of aggregate savings-bank deposits of
679,000,000 rubles were invested in securities, viz., 230,000,000 rubles
in state loans, 215,000,000 rubles in mortgages held by the Land
Banks, and 168,000,000 rubles in railway loans.

TheTreasury is doing some very profitable “business”:
first, it covers all expenses incurred by the savings-banks and gets a net
profit (hitherto credited to the reserve fund of the savings-banks);
secondly, it compels the depositors to cover the deficits in our
state economy (compels them to
loan money to the Treasury). From 1894 to 1899, deposits in savings-banks
totalled an average of 250,000,000 rubles per annum, while withdrawals
amounted to 200,000,000 rubles. Consequently, that leaves fifty
million rubles annually that can be used for loans to patch up
holes in the Treasury’s money-bags, into which thieving fingers are dipped
by all but the laziest. Why fear deficits due to squandering money on wars
and on hand-outs to hangers-on at Court, to landlords and manufacturers
when it is always possible to obtain sizable sums from the “people’s
savings”!

Weshall add parenthetically that one of the reasons the Treasury is
conducting such profitable business is because it is steadily lowering the
rate of interest paid on monetary deposits, which is lower than the
interest on securities. For example, in 1894 the interest paid on monetary
deposits was 4.12 per cent, and on securities—4.34 per cent; in 1899
it was 3.92 per cent and 4.02 per cent, respectively. As is well known,
reduction of interest is a feature common to all capitalist countries and
it brings out most clearly and graphically the growth of big capital and
large-scale production at the expense of small-scale production,
because in the final analysis the rate of interest is determined by the
ratio between aggregate prof its and the aggregate capital invested in
production. Nor can we ignore the fact that the Treasury is constantly
intensifying its exploitation of postal and telegraph employees:
at first they had only the mails to look after; then the telegraph was
added; now they have been burdened also with the job of receiving and
paying out savings deposits (it should be remembered that 3,718 out of the
4,781 savings-banks are at post- and telegraph-offices). A terrific
increase in the intensity of labour and a longer working day—that is
what this means to the mass of postal and telegraph employees. As to their
salaries, the Treasury scrimps on them like the most close-fisted kulak:
the lowest grade of employees, those who have just entered service, are
paid literally starvation rates; then comes an endlessly graded
succession of twenty-five-kopek and fifty-kopek rises, and the prospect of
a niggardly pension after forty to fifty years of drudgery is intended to
increase even more the bondage of this varitable “proletariat of
officialdom.”

Butlet us return to the way savings-bank capital is used. We have seen
that (by order of the Russian Government) the banks invest 215,000,000
rubles in mortgages held by the Land Banks and 168,000,000 rubles in
railway loans. This fact has provided food for still another and of late
extremely widespread display of bourgeois ...
I meant to say “critical” wisdom. In essence, the Bernsteins,
the Hertzes, the Ghernovs, the Bulgakovs, and their like tell us, this
fact means that the small depositors in the savings-banks are becoming
railway owners and land mortgage holders. It is a fact,
they argue, that even such purely capitalist and colossal enterprises as
the railways and banks are becoming more and more decentralised, are being
divided up, and are passing into the hands of petty proprietors, who
acquire them by purchasing shares, bonds, mortgages, etc.; it is a fact
that the wealthy, the owners of property are growing in number—yet
those narrow-minded Marxists are fussing about with the antiquated theory
of concentration and the theory of impoverishment. If, for instance, the
Russian factory workers have 157,000 accounts at savings-banks with
aggregate deposits amounting to 21,000,000 rubles, about 5,000,000 rubles
of this sum is invested in railway loans, and about 8,000,000 rubles in
Land Bank mortgages. That means that Russian factory workers own 5,000,000
rubles’ worth of railways and are landowners worth 8,000,000 rubles. Now
go and talk of a proletariat! Hence, the workers are exploiting the
landowners, since, in the form of interest on mortgages, they receive a
modicum of rent, i.e., a small portion of the surplus-value.

Yes,this precisely is the line of reasoning adopted by the latest critics
of Marxism.... And—here is something that will surprise you—I
am prepared to agree with the widespread opinion that we should welcome
this “criticism,” since it has brought a stir into a theory which
was alleged to be stagnant; I am prepared to agree to that on the
following condition. There was a time when the French socialists whetted
their skill as propagandists and agitators by analysing the sophisms of
Bastiat, while the German socialists followed suit by unravelling the
sophisms of
Schulze-Delitzsch[6];
as for us, Russians, it has thus far fallen to
our lot to deal only with the company of “critics.” And so, I am
prepared to shout, “Long live criticism!”—on
condition that, in our propaganda and agitation among the
masses, we, socialists, engage as widely as possible in an
analysis of all the bourgeois sophisms of fashionable “criticism.”
If you agree to this condition we can call it a bargain! Incidentally, our
bourgeoisie are more and more maintaining a discreet silence; for they
prefer the protection of the tsarist
archangels [ An appellation given in tsarist Russia
to members of the secret police.—Ed.]
to that of the bourgeois theoreticians, and it will be very convenient for
us to accept the “critics” as the “devil’s advocates.”

Throughthe savings-banks eyer larger numbers of workers and small
producers are taking a share in big enterprises. This is undoubtedly a
fact. What this fact shows, how ever, is not an increase in the number of
property-owners, but 1) the growing socialisation of labour in capitalist
society, and 2) the growing subordination of small-scale production to
large-scale production. Take the small Russian depositor. Over 50 per cent
of such depositors, as we have seen, have accounts of up to 100 rubles, to
wit 1,618,000 depositors with savings totalling 42,000,000 rubles, i.e.,
an average of 26 rubles per depositor. Thus, this depositor “owns”
about 6 rubles’ worth of railways and about 9 rubles’ worth of
“landed property.” Does this make him wealthy or a
“proprietor”? No, he remains a proletarian, who is forced to sell
his labour-power, i.e., to become a slave of those who own the means of
production. As for his “share” in “railway and
banking” business, it merely shows that capitalism is increasingly
linking together individual members of society and individual classes. The
interdependence of individual producers was infinitesimal in patriarchal
economy; it is now constantly increasing. Labour is becoming more and more
social, and enterprises less and less “private,” although they still
remain almost entirely in private hands.

Hisparticipation in a big enterprise undoubtedly weaves the
small depositor into the pattern of that enterprise. Who benefits
from this link? Big capital does, which extends its transactions by paying
the small depositor no
more (and often less) than it pays any other lender, and by being the
more independent of the small depositors, the smaller and
the more scattered the latter are. We have seen that the share of the
small depositors is extremely small even in the savings-bank capital. How
insignificant, then, must it be in the capital of the railway and banking
magnates? By giving his mite to these magnates, the small depositor enters
into a new dependence on big capital. He cannot even think of
having any say in the use of this big capital; his “profit” is
ridiculously small (26 rubles at 4 percent=1 ruble a year!). Yet in the
event of a failure he loses even his miserable mite. What the abundance of
these small depositors signifies is not the decentralisation of big
capital but the strengthening of the power of big capital, which
is able to dispose of even the smallest mites in the
“people’s” savings. His share in big enterprises does not make
the small depositor more independent; on the contrary, he becomes more
dependent on the big proprietor.

Whatfollows from the increase in the number of small depositors is not
the reassuring philistine deduction about an increase in the number of
wealthy people, but the revolutionary conclusion of the growing dependence
of the small depositors on the big, of the mounting contradiction between
the increasingly socialised nature of the enterprises and the preservation
of private ownership of the means of production. The more the
savings-banks develop, the more interested do the small depositors become
in the socialist victory of the proletariat, which alone will make them
real, and not fictitious, “sharers” in and administrators of
social wealth.

Notes

[1]Iskra (The Spark)—the first all-Russian illegal Marxist
news paper, which Lenin founded in 1900 and which played a decisive part
in creating the revolutionary Marxist party of the working class.

Sincepolice persecution made publication of a revolutionary newspaper
impossible in Russia, Lenin, while in exile in Siberia, worked out all
details of a plan for publishing one abroad. When his exile ended (January
1900), he immediately set about giving effect to this plan. In February
1900 Lenin conducted negotiations in St. Petersburg with V. I. Zasulich,
who had illegally come there from abroad, on participation of the
Emancipation of Labour group in publishing an all-Russian Marxist
newspaper. In late March and early April 1900, the so-called “Pskov
Conference” took place, at which V. I. Lenin, Y. 0. Martov,
A. N. Potresov and S. I. Radchenko, together with the “legal
Marxists” P. B. Struve and M. I. Tugan-Baranovsky, discussed Lenin’s
draft editorial declaration on the programme and tasks of an all-Russian
newspaper (Iskra) and a scientific-political magazine
(Zarya). Lenin visited a number of Russian cities (Moscow,
St. Petersburg, Riga, Smolensk, Nizhni-Novgorod, Ufa, Samara, Syzran),
established connections with Social-Democratic groups and individual
Social-Democrats and came to an agreement with them concerning support for
the future Iskra. When Lenin arrived in Switzer land in August
1900, he and A. N. Potresov had a conference with members of the
Emancipation of Labour group concerning the programme and tasks of the
newspaper and the magazine, possible contributors, and the composition and
location of the editorial board. These negotiations almost ended in a
rupture (see present edition, Vol. 4,“How the ‘Spark’ Was Nearly
Extinguished,” pp. 333-49), but finally agreement on all the questions at
issue was reached with the Emancipation of Labour group.

Thefirst number of Lenin’s Iskra was published in Leipzig in
December 1900, while the following numbers came out in Munich, in London
from July 1902 and in Geneva from the spring of 1903. Great assistance in
organising the publication of Iskra was given by the German
Social-Democrats Clara Zetkin, Adolf Braun and others, by the Polish
revolutionary Julian Marchlewski who was living in Munich at the time, and
by Harry Quelch, one of the leaders of the British Social-Democratic
Federation. The Editorial Board of Iskra consisted of
V. I. Lenin, G. V. Plekhanov, Y. 0. Martov, P. B. Axelrod,
A. N. Potresov, and V. I. Zasulich. I. G. Smidovich-Leman was the first
secretary of the Editorial Board, to be later followed, from the spring of
1901, by N. K. Krupskaya,
who also dealt with all Iskra’s correspondence with Russian
Democratic organisations.

Iskracentred its attention on problems of the revolutionary
struggle of the proletariat and all the working people of Russia against
the tsarist autocracy, but it also p aid great attention to leading
international events, and chiefly to the international working-class
movement. In actual fact Lenin was the editor-in-chief and leader of
Iskra; he wrote articles on all the main questions of Party
construction and the Russian proletariat’s class struggle.

Iskrabecame the centre for the unification of the Party’s
forces, mobilising and training the Party’s cadres. In a number of Russian
cities (St. Petersburg, Moscow, Samara, etc.) R.S.D.L.P. groups and
committees of Lenin’s Iskra trend were established, and in
January 1902 a Russian Iskra organisation was set up at a
conference of Iskra supporters held in Samara. The Iskra
organisations were created and carried out their work under the direct
guidance of Lenin’s pupils and comrades-in-arms: N. E. Bauman,
I. V. Babushkin, S. I. Gusev, M. I. Kalinin, P. A. Krasikov,
G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, F. V. Leugnik, P. N. Lepeshtnsky, I. I. Radchenko,
and others.

OnLenin’s initiative and with his direct participation, the
Iskra Editorial Board drew up the draft Party programme
(published in No. 21 of Iskra) and prepared the Second Congress
of the R.S.D.L.P., which took place in July-August 1903. When the Congress
met, most local Social-Democratic organisations In Russia had adhered to
Iskra, approved its tactics, programme, and organisational plan,
and recognised it as their leading organ. A special decision of the
Congress noted the unique role of Iskra in the struggle for the
Party, and appointed it the Central Organ of the R.S.D.L.P. The Second
Congress ratified an editorial board consisting of Lenin, Plekhanov, and
Martov. Martov, who insisted on retention of all six former editors,
refused to go on the board, despite the Party Congress decision, and
Nos. 46-51 of the paper appeared under the editorship of Lenin and
Plekhanov. Later Plekhanov went over to the Menshevik position, and
demanded that the Iskra Editorial Board should include all the
old Menshevik editors rejected by the Congress. Lenin could not agree to
this, and on October 19 (November 1), 1903, he left the Iskra
Editorial Board. He was co-opted into the Central Committee and from there
conducted a struggle against the Menshevik opportunists. No. 52 of
Iskra appeared under the editorship of Plekhanov alone. On
November 13 (26), 1903, Plekhanov, acting alone and in defiance of the
Congress, co-opted the former Menshevik editors into the Iskra
Editorial Board. Beginning with No. 52, the Mensheviks transformed
Iskra into their own organ. p. 86

[2]Zemstvo—the name given to the local
government bodies introduced in the central gubernias of tsarist Russia in
1864.

Thepowers of the Zemstvos were limited to purely local economic problems
(hospital and road building, statistics, insurance, etc.). Their
activities were controlled by the provincial governors
and by the Ministry of the Interior, which could overrule any decisions
disapproved by the government. p. 86

[3]
In speaking of the “Novoye Vremya panegyrics”
V. I. Lenin has in mind the reactionary trend of the tsarist Russian press
as typified by the newspaper Novoye Vremya (New Times) which was
published in St. Petersburg from 1868 to October 1917.

NovoyeVremya-ism was an expression used to denote reactionism,
venality, and toadyism. p. 87

[4]
V. I. Lenin has in view the “Report of the State Savings-Banks for
1899,” published by the Board of the State Savings-Banks (year of
publication not indicated). p. 87

[5]
The calculation is inaccurate: 157,000 is not one-sixth, but approximately
one-twelfth of the two million factory workers. p. 89

[6]Bastiat—French bourgeois economist of the first half of the
nineteenth century. Bastiat preached civil peace, the “harmony of
interests” of the various classes of bourgeois society. Karl Marx in
his work, “Carey and Bastiat,” written in July-December 1857,
sharply criticised and ridiculed Bastiat’s doctrine.

Schulze-Delitzsch—Germaneconomist and supporter of
Bastiat. In an effort to divert workers and artisans, who were becoming
proletarianised, from the revolutionary struggle, he advocated the
establishment of co-operative societies and loan and savings-banks, which,
he claimed, could improve the proletariat’s condition within the framework
of capitalism and save the artisan small producers from ruin. p. 94